Q: What is the meaning of 'Awaiting PE Decision' in ScholarOne?

Detailed Question -

I submitted my manuscript at the end of October and checked in today, almost two months later. The current status states ‘Awaiting PE Decision.’ What does ‘PE’ mean?

1 Answer to this question
Answer:

Manuscript statuses differ according to journals as also the way they customize a submission platform (such as ScholarOne) as per their workflow. At times, the changes may be initiated by the platform itself. (ScholarOne makes regular updates to their platform, once every two or three months.) Anyway, here, ‘PE’ likely refers to the ‘Publishing Editor’ and therefore, the status refers to the decision by the Publishing Editor. (This may correspond to the Editor-in-Chief, or EIC, role for most journals.)

Now, you haven’t mentioned whether the manuscript went for peer review or not. However, it seems it did, as it’s been about two months since submission (though manuscripts have been known to be stuck at the desk for longer). If so, your paper has probably come back from peer review, and after the Associate/Managing Editor (AE/ME), as the case may be, has had a look at the review comments, they have arrived at a decision on the paper and referred their decision to the PE/EIC, who will make the final decision.

If however, the paper didn’t go for peer review, this status in that case may mean that the AE/ME (or whatever the handling editor role is called here) has had a look at the paper, and for various reasons, decided not to send it for peer review and has referred this decision to the PE/EIC, and is awaiting their (final/next) decision.

Anyway, you should probably hear from them soon. However, we would suggest writing to them this week seeking an update (in case the status changed some time back). This is because if not now, when the main holiday season is approaching, you’ll probably next hear from them only sometime mid-January. This way, if you hear from them this week itself, you’ll probably be able to decide your next steps soon.

From our side, for more insights into journal statuses and decision-making, you may find the following resources helpful.

The last is a link to a handbook on R Upskill, a sister brand offering learning programs for various aspects of a researcher/academic’s work, covering the range of writing, submission, publication, communication, and career development. For a limited period, the entire suite of courses is available for free (as a trial), so feel free to check it out.

For now, though, you should probably write to the journal soon before they go into holiday mode. Speaking of which – Happy Holidays (in advance)!

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